


Bonds of Blood and Water

by Hampsterpig



Category: RWBY
Genre: Comments are my cocaine, F/F, I'm Bad At Summaries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28880865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hampsterpig/pseuds/Hampsterpig
Summary: After the fight at the docks, Team RWBY is starting to mesh together. Of course, they still have some problems to work through, Blake especially. Ruby wants to help her team connect.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Ruby Rose
Comments: 4
Kudos: 30





	Bonds of Blood and Water

**Bonds of Blood and Water**

Chapter 1

Ruby Rose had a problem.

She was sitting in the weapons workshop of Beacon Academy and she was trying to think. Back in Signal Academy she had found that taking apart, cleaning, and rebuilding Crescent Rose to be the best way for her to think. At the moment, she was almost through reassembling the weapon and yet still no closer to a solution.

The problem was she had no idea how to be a leader for Team RWBY.

The first thing she had thought of was the stories Yang would read to her before bed and then Ruby would later read for herself. In those stories there would always be one to gather everyone together and they’d go fight evil and they’d win and everything was happy ever after.

She let out a  _ hmph  _ and locked in the joint where her baby’s blade met the shaft with the happy sound of gears locking together.

The problem was that those leaders were always these grand figures who knew just what to say! She was just Ruby Rose, a normal girl with normal knees and no clue what to do. She wasn’t that good at talking to people and all her teammates were so  _ different _ . How was she supposed to get them to work together?

Yang, she knew. Obsessive about her hair, her bike, and driven to find her mom. So few of Yang’s friends got to see just how focused her sister could be. Yang always made herself out to be so easy-going but Ruby had seen Yang spend hours making sure her hair was just right. Ruby had watched as her sister built Bumblebee piece by piece, even refusing Ruby’s many offers to help add a flamethrower to the bike. When she wasn’t fixing whatever small issue she had found in Bumblebee, she and her friends would go out dancing or to see different concerts. Yang could make friends with anyone and their mom had always said she could light up a room with her smile. 

Weiss Schnee was more of a mystery to her, but over the course of the semester so far Ruby had been able to learn a decent amount about her partner. She enjoyed singing and Ruby had taken the time to sample some of Weiss’s songs at a music shop in Vale, as well as heard her sing in their dorm, so Ruby felt confident in saying her new best friend was very skilled. Once when Ruby was procrastinating on her homework, Weiss had sat her down and explained that Weiss herself had spent almost every hour of every day training to be a huntress growing up and she expected Ruby to be her equal while they were partners at Beacon. Of course, Ruby didn’t see how knowing how to sing was important to being a huntress, so the only other reason that she still practiced must be that Weiss herself enjoyed singing. Weiss also seemed to just genuinely enjoy hanging out with people who didn’t care about her family, despite how she claimed to find talking to her own teammates to be “draining.”

Ruby enjoyed music too, though her tastes were a bit more punk than Yang’s dance music and Weiss’s classical pieces, but she figured they could work something out. Early on she had thought that maybe they could all go enjoy some karaoke together! They could all have fun stumbling over each other’s favorite songs! All except for their final teammate, Blake.

Blake Belladonna was largely a mystery to Ruby. For one, she didn’t seem to like music very much. Whenever one of them had music on, she’d usually leave the room. Ruby had tried to talk to her in the past, but whenever it seemed like the cat faunus was just about to say something personal or something about her past, she cut herself off. To be perfectly honest, it felt a little painful to think about how Blake didn’t trust the team enough to tell them about herself. At the moment, all Ruby knew about Blake was that she liked books, she liked fish a lot, she used to be part of the White Fang, and Ruby wasn’t sure if she was allowed to talk about the fish thing. Did she like fish because she was a cat faunus or was that racist? People were allowed to like different foods just because they liked them! Having cute cat ears didn’t mean that Blake had to like fish. Even looking it up when Blake wasn’t looking had just confused her. Official studies said that faunus behaved a lot like the animal they shared physical traits with, but there were faunus that said it wasn’t true and those studies were wrong and the people doing them were biased.

Ruby frowned as she shifted her weapon from its full scythe form to a sniper and aimed down the scope, fingers ghosting over the knobs as she adjusted the sights. She was pretty sure that Blake wouldn’t mind if Ruby, Weiss and Yang all hung out without her. She’d probably even enjoy the quiet, but the point wasn’t to just hang out with  _ most _ of RWBY, she wanted  _ all  _ of them to hang out  _ together. _

No, the one thing they all had in common was that they wanted to be huntresses, so whatever they did, it had to have something to do with being a huntress. But how to turn that into an activity they could do together? All day, all they did was learn about how to hunt Grimm, even Oobleck’s histories included lessons on how early humans used the environment to keep themselves safe from the monsters that stalked the world. What didn’t they already do in class that they could do as a team?

Ruby set down her now fully-reduced weapon and slumped on her stool. The sniper-scythe stared back at her, sparkling clean just like the day Ruby had first built it, if not better after all the modifications since then, but she still didn’t have an answer.

“Ugh, why is this so difficult?” She asked the weapon. “Everyone says people are easy to talk to, but they aren’t! It’s easy to bake cookies, it’s easy to kill monsters, weapons are easy!” She fell forward and let her head rest against the cool metal. “People are hard.”

Or was it that simple?

She sat up and looked down at her weapon and the variety of tools she used to care for it, gears turning in her mind.

Ruby Rose had an idea.

**-X-**

“So you want us to tell each other about our weapons?” Weiss raised a skeptic eyebrow as she looked from Ruby to the weapons on the floor, each laying in front of their respective huntress as they sat in a circle.

“Yep! We’re all huntresses and we can’t do that without our weapons!” Ruby stood, sweeping up Crescent Rose and deploying it to its full length all in one spinning motion that made the rest of her team flinch back. “Our weapons are part of our identities as huntresses and if we want to work together as a team, we need to know each other’s weapons just as well as we know each other!”

“I guess I can see your point…” Weiss glanced from the grinning Ruby to her other two teammates, uncertain.

“I mean you already know Ember Celica, Ruby, you can just say you want to look at their weapons.” Yang said with a bemused grin.

“That’s not the point, Yang!” Ruby protested, “I’m trying to help us bond as a team!” She glared at her sister for a moment until Yang put up her hands in a gesture of defeat.

“I don’t see why not.” Blake looked similarly confused by the prospect but made no further comment, instead looking towards Ruby attentively. “Maybe you could go first and give us an idea of what to say?"

“Oh, good idea!” Ruby shifted in place and drew herself up to her full height, looking even smaller than she really was next to her beast of a weapon. “This is Crescent Rose, my partner in all things huntress-ing!” She gestured dramatically to the scythe, then paused, glancing over at an unamused Weiss. “Of course you’re also my partner Weiss, it’s just Crescent Rose is my weapon and I’ve known her a lot longer, not that you aren’t a great partner, you’re always looking out for me and stuff, I didn’t mean to say you weren’t-”

“Ruby,” Weiss cut the babbling huntress off, pinching the bridge of her nose, “it’s fine, continue.”

“Uh, right, sorry We-” Ruby stiffened at Weiss’s arch look, closed her eyes, breathed out, and refocused on her weapon. “Crescent Rose is a high-caliber sniper-scythe, custom-built and modified by yours truly. Our Uncle Qrow is a teacher at Signal and he uses a scythe and he taught me personally how to use one.”

“I feel like Uncle Qrow uses his sword mode more than the scythe- hey!” Yang looked offended at Blake who only pointed towards an annoyed Ruby with the same finger she had just used to poke Yang. “Oh, sorry Rubes.”

“ _ Yes _ , Uncle Qrow uses Harbinger’s sword form when he’s fighting people,  _ but! _ ” Ruby twirled the weapon so the haft rested across her shoulders. “ _ As huntsmen and huntresses, we reap Grimm, so it is only fitting we use the reaper’s weapon against them _ .” Blake and Weiss both looked back to Yang.

“Uncle Qrow can be a little dramatic when it comes to hunting, but he’s a pretty relaxed dude most of the time.” The pair slowly nodded and looked back to Ruby.

“It’s actually pretty hard to swing this scythe around, which is where the sniper rifle comes in. I use the recoil to help compensate for the weight of the blade, I even modified it for a larger caliber of ammo so that the recoil is that much stronger.” She pulled the slide back and a Dust round that was longer than her hand was wide ejected. She caught it easily and held the bullet out to show. “These babies can put a hole through a beowolf’s head from over a kilometer away!"

“That seems fairly expensive,” Blake said, taking the cartridge and feeling the weight of it. “And these aren’t stocked in your typical weapons store.” She peered closer at the casing and the details pressed into the metal. “They’re from Atlas?”

“That is correct! Peak Tech in Vale is the only place that stocks them and they give me a good deal because I buy all of Crescent Rose’s mods there too! I don’t use Dust otherwise so all of my school budget for Dust goes there.” She took the bullet back and slid it into a loop on her belt. “Atlas is always making cool new weapons for us to use against the Grimm. Their stuff is the best!” 

“Well, the Atlesian military does have the largest Schnee Dust Company contract so they have enough materials to power their forges.” Weiss drew herself up as she spoke. “It only makes sense that from high-quality fuel comes high-quality products.”

“And yet they still have such low-quality work conditions.”

“Sounds to me like your chance at hitting at that range is a  _ long shot. _ ” Yang cut in, the ensuing groans from Ruby drowning out the indignant noises coming from Weiss.

“Fighting with just the rifle is  _ boring _ ,” Ruby whined, throwing her head back in a dramatic fashion, “Fighting up close is more fun! I get to go all  _ swish bang stab. _ ” She punctuated each sound with poses, fighting an imaginary Grimm before relaxing. “Anyway, if anyone needs to work on their aim, it’s you sis.”

“Hey!” Yang pulled on one gauntlet and brought her elbow back sharply, the motion cocking the shotgun built into the weapon. “Ember Celica doesn’t need me to aim. The name basically means Fire Angel, but Ember Celica sounds even cooler than that. They’re dual shotgun gauntlets designed to work with my Semblance.” She held up a hand. “Hey Rubes, got a screwdriver?” There was a burst of rose petals and a screwdriver appeared in Yang’s hand.

“Thanks,” Yang took off the gauntlet and began to unscrew the outermost plate, “my semblance lets me convert kinetic energy I absorb into physical strength, so...” Pulling off the plate, she showed the firing mechanism inside. “Notice anything missing?”

“The-”

“No Ruby, it was your idea, but it’s my weapon.” Yang rolled her eyes as her sister did her best to stick her entire fist in her mouth, instead focusing on Blake and Weiss. “I don’t have any of the stabilizers that most hunter-weapons do. When a huntsman uses recoil to move, they have shock absorbers in their weapons to make sure they aren’t draining a ton of Aura from the force.” She put the plate back in place and began screwing it in. “Since I benefit from the extra kick, Ruby had the idea to take ‘em out and now every time I fire, I get a boost to my semblance.”

“What if you run out of Aura in the middle of a fight?” Blake asked. “Wouldn’t your weapon only work against you?”

“By the time I’m out of Aura, I’ve already won.” She winked at her still-skeptical partner. 

“Weiss, Blake, what about you?” Ruby looked between the two. Blake’s mouth drew a thin line while Weiss somehow sat up even straighter than she had been. 

“While your weapon is impressive Ruby, I think that you’ll find that my Myrtenaster is superior.” Weiss waved a hand over the rapier in its case.

“You  _ dare- _ ” Yang slapped a hand over Ruby’s mouth, but her eyes flashed with anger. 

“It is a Multi-Action Dust Rapier,” Weiss proceeded without pause, “Father had it made to my design by the finest craftsmen in Atlas. The Dust chamber and channels are specially made to require the finest quality Dust, as provided by the Schnee Dust Company.” She folded the hilts aside and popped out the Dust chamber. She moved to remove the red casing before glancing at the still-muffled-and-glaring Ruby and selecting the green. She poured out a small amount of the powder and held it out to show. “This allows me much finer control than the average Dust user.” 

“I’ve never seen Dust this refined.” Blake took a pinch of it to rub between her fingers, marveling at the silky texture. “Isn’t this way too expensive for most people to even think of buying?” 

“That would be correct, and even then, only members of the Schnee family and top-ranked members of the Atlesian military are able to acquire it.” Weiss preened as Yang let out a low whistle. 

Ruby pulled her sister’s hand down and scooped up the weapon in a burst of rose petals. Her fingers tracing the designs on the engraved metal as she followed them up the blade. 

“Are these the channels for the Dust? They’re so small!” She breathed in sharply. “And Atlesian blade oil? Vacuo’s is better.” 

“Hold on, you said yourself, Atlas is the leader in weapons research. Vacuo couldn’t compare to our products.”

“Actually,” Blake broke in, “Vacuo’s environment is so hostile, they’ve been forced to develop better methods of protecting their weaponry.” She blew on the Dust in her hand and it vanished into a small breeze. “They aren’t as developed as Atlas, but thanks to the desert Vacou’s military had every advantage when Mistral and Mantle tried to invade during the Great War… What?” The other huntresses stared at their normally quiet teammate with surprise, Ruby grinning as she did. 

“You don’t normally talk this much unless it’s about…” Yang waved in Weiss’s direction. “It’s cool to see that you’re joining in, but why do you know so much about Vacuo?” 

“I heard people talk about it a lot growing up,” Blake said with a shrug. “And we did hear about this from Oobleck, remember?” 

“Indeed! And why am I not surprised that you two don’t remember this?” Weiss huffed, rallying to admonish the two sisters. “It’s going to be on our final exam you know.”

The sisters did their best to look sheepish as Weiss berated them, then Ruby’s eyes flashed and she moved in a burst of petals over to Blake. 

“What about you, Blake?! Tell us about your weapon!” Her eyes sparkled as she looked over the dark steel. “I’ve never seen a Variant Ballistic Chain Scythe in person before, and yours is custom too!” 

“It’s not that impressive.” She drew the smaller blade from the sheath and laid them both out for Ruby to properly inspect. 

“Oh you’re just saying that!” Ruby exclaimed as she swept up the two swords, holding them out to examine the edge before suddenly frowning. “Hold on…” She balanced the smaller katana-pistol on one hand, watched as it tipped, then adjusted her hand again. “Blake…” Ruby’s voice trailed off while the faunus only shrugged.

“I didn’t make Gambol Shroud like your weapons were. I spent a lot of time moving around when I was with the White Fang and added things where I could.” Blake reached out and took her weapons back, twirling the cleaver into a reverse grip. “I took this from a broken Atlesian Knight-110 and ended up pulling out the inner mechanism so I could hold it.

“This,” she flicked the mecha-shift on the katana to collapse the blade, “started with just a standard pistol you can find at most any weapons supplier. Later-” she grimaced, not speaking for a moment, “- _ someone _ suggested I add a second blade to my fighting style and they helped me put this together. I already wore ribbons to help blend in, so I started using them too.”

“Ooooo,” Ruby cooed, “so instead of a weapon that needs more maintenance like my sweetheart, yours are better for missions where stopping for a while isn’t an option.” She pulled her hood up, shrouding her face in its shadow. “I can see it now, days without sleep, monsters at every turn. But through it all, you know you can rely on your steel and skill to see you through the Grimm night.” Yang flashed a thumbs up, snickering. 

“ _ Sure, something like that _ ,” Blake said testily, not-so-subtly brushing Ruby’s hand from her shoulder. 

“You never use Dust in combat outside of standard ammunition,” Weiss spoke flatly. “Is that also a product from when you were a part of…  _ that group? _ ” 

“I’ve used Dust with my Semblance in the past, but it’s too expensive for me to use regularly,” Blake responded. “Even with Beacon covering expenses, I don’t want to rely on something that I won’t always have.” She sheathed the katana in the cleaver and slid it into place on her back. “As it is, even if I don’t have any ammunition left, I can still fight.”

“Buuut~,” Ruby began with an eager smile, “Now you could upgrade! Peak Tech’s sure to give you a discount if I’m with you! We could get you a collapsable chain with lightning Dust, and maybe change the sheath for something even choppier! How do you feel about axes?” She bounced in place with barely contained energy, ignoring Yang’s sudden wince. 

“Peak Tech is an Atlesian company,” the faunus’s cold tone stopped her bouncing. “They are known to overcharge faunus wherever they can’t outright refuse to sell to us.” 

“What? No way, they’re always so nice to me,” Ruby waved dismissively. “Plus, overcharging people like that is illegal.”

“Ruby’s right, Vale’s business laws are too strict for that.” Weiss broke in, “The SDC has complaints from them every year claiming that we are keeping faunus out of high-skill jobs in Vale.”

“Okay guys, I think we’re getting a little off-top-”

“And you do keep us down.” Blake cut Yang off. “There aren't any faunus researchers in Atlas, they are forced to stay down in Mantle. And in other countries, the same thing happens.” Blake turned sharply back towards Ruby, who let out a small ‘eep.’ “I may be able to pass as human, but I’m not going to start supporting everything I’ve fought against my whole life!” She stood suddenly.

“Blake! No! I’m sorry!” Ruby’s calls were ignored as Blake stormed out of their dorm, slamming the door behind her. 

“Well, so much for getting to know each other.” Weiss drawled before rising to her feet.

“You didn’t exactly help, Weiss.” Yang shot back, chin resting in one palm. “Good try, Ruby.”

The ‘leader’ of Team RWBY just slumped, staring blankly at the door. Her team was a mess and she had no idea how to fix it.


End file.
